[ZDP] Wysiwyg = bad...

[Jim Salmons]

Rik,

	WYSIWYG web editors are for folks who think that presentation is more
important than content. By separating content from presentation, ZOPE helps
to get away from the naive notion that WEB PAGES are analogous to DESKTOP
PUBLISHING PAGES. They are not.

	An author DICTATES the presentation of a desktop publishing page. A web
page author SUGGESTS the page and lets the browser render it. Minimal,
flexible code is the best way to let browsers do their job. And, most
importantly, just like in software, simple coding breaks less so your time
is spent on content, not worthless tweaking of fragile presentation.

	A decent ZOPE site should not need WYSIWYG editing. With custom input forms
to contribute content and context-aware presentation template views, there
is no need for WYSIWYG editing. At most, folks might want to place minimal
formatting tags (bold, italic, anchor tags) into contributed text content.

	If someone is doing a site that requires extensive WYSIWYG pages, they
don't need ZOPE and they probably shouldn't use ZOPE. This is fine by me,
because sites that think WYSIWYG presentation is more important than content
generally suck anyway.

	ZOPE is best applied by those who realize that content is king, not
presentation.

	Off the 'back to basics' soapbox,
	--Jim--


Jim Salmons and Timlynn Babitsky
___________________________________________
   JFS Consulting, a North Carolina nanocorp
   http://jfsconsulting.com/home/nanocorp_welcome.html